RISON - Rison Coach Chris Vereen said he has sent video to the Arkansas Activities Association challenging the clock management at Friday night’s game between the Wildcats and the Lake Village Beavers, though he says it will not change the outcome.
There was some controversy at the close of both halves concerning the clock.
In the final seconds of the first half, the Beavers were at the Rison 4 with 20.4 seconds left and no timeouts when a Lake Village player tried to sweep outside but was tackled in bounds. Video shows the clock never started, and using a stopwatch to time the play, 12 seconds had run off by the time the players were getting up from the tackle.
That meant Lake Village would have had to make it back to the line of scrimmage and line up for a play with 8 seconds remaining and the clock still running.
Rison, however, was flagged for delay of game at the end of the play. Lake Village managed to run two more plays before scoring a touchdown with 4 seconds left to take a 22-13 lead at halftime.
At the end of the game, Lake Village called a timeout with 28 seconds left with the ball at the Rison 7. The Beavers had a fourth-down run that went for five yards to pick up the first down, then the Wildcats were flagged for offsides on the next play.
Lake Village then ran another play to score on a one-yard run with 21.3 seconds left. That meant the Beavers managed to run two plays, plus have another play where a penalty was called, within a seven-second span.
Vereen said he did visit with Steve Roberts, associate executive director of the AAA, about the matter and passed the video evidence along to him.